Camp Busy Bees--Part 2

So, on Day 3 we took a break.

Lots of play-where-you-need-to-play in the morning while Nature Angel, Little Princess, and I chopped, froze, and dried cherries, rhubarb, and apples--probably 50 lbs of produce.

We read about G.W. Carver at lunch, had an extra-long quiet time, and then Nature Angel mixed up a batch of giant bubble solution.  The kids flocked to her.

Having finished with the excitement of just making bubbles, the kids figured out how to play with them.  Coating their hands with bubble solution allowed them to catch bubbles, build with bubbles, stick their hands inside bubbles and more.

Bubbles stretch!

I love this shot!  Little Princess got the picture right down the center of the bubble, and Beowulf's hands are inside it, too!

Bubble here--

Bubble gone!

I don't think he was expecting the bubble to pop!

We watched a movie in the afternoon--the Annie remake.

We had our usual bedtime reading routine.  Everyone opted to sleep indoors, but we left the tent up because the teens and tweens plan to use it again this weekend.  A monster storm arrived overnight, and because the tent windows were open, Sir Walter Scott spent a lot of time hanging things out to dry in the morning.

Day 4 dawned muddy and sunny.

We had only 2 camp activities--cloud dough and sewing.  Everyone played with cloud dough, rotating to sewing with me 2 at a time.  We spent the whole morning just on those two gentle activities.

We had lunch and reading and quiet time, and then the kids asked if they could sew again.

Sew again they did!

This is a sleeping bag for Mousie.

Mister Man's completed Zenki.

Baymax worked so industriously at taking tiny stitches with a purpose.

Ladybug's completed Zenki.

Brother's stuffed animal sleeping bag turned out to be harder than I realized (I should have realized!).  I had to do some machine sewing for him, but he did all of the hand sewing on his own. 

Lola got in on the action by folding fabric around her stuffed animals and cutting armholes.

Beowulf made all kinds of stuff.

Nature Angel is a quilter (not that she realizes it).

Peck-Peck sleeps beautifully in his new sleeping bag.

Finally I kicked them outside to water play and jump rope.

Little Princess, Nature Angel, and I processed another 20-ish lbs of rhubarb.

Then Mister Man, Ladybug, and I made dinner--a huge potato/sausage/green bean casserole and an equally huge rhubarb/strawberry/peach cobbler.

They're earning a cooking badge this week!

Bedtime was as usual.  Beowulf is doing much, much better after the break.

Day 5--The last day of camp!  I can hardly believe it!  I'm glad we did it; I'm glad it's over.

We rotated through 4 activities all before lunch:
Archery
Nature Imprints
Swing Painting
Cupcake decorating

This second day of Archery was easy-peasy for me; I actually took a book down to our archery range and read in between shots and turns.  The kids were confident about nocking the arrows, aiming, and judging what they needed to do to improve.  Even our toy arrows with no fletching flew more true this time around.

Look what Baymax did!!!

Lola was bored of archery, and my camera battery died before it was Mister Man's turn. 

It died because Baymax, Lola, and Brother decided that photography was more fun than archery, and they took hundreds of pictures.

Each of these three had decided interests of what they like to photograph.  I'm including a few from each kid just because it makes me smile.

 Baymax liked shapes.

 
Lola liked color and texture.

Brother liked the sky.

We should have done Swing Painting on Day 4, but the mud and the need to keep it simple convinced us to put it on hold.  And that was a good thing.  Swing Painting could never have taken a full hour, and having the kids decorate just 2 cupcakes each and then go paint was a good way to break up an hour.

Nature Angel ran this class.

Yes, Lola and Baymax did do these two activities, but they were so squirrely and in need of constant supervision, that Nature Angel just couldn't run the class and take pictures at the same time.

Here they are during Nature Imprints.

They had just been out on a walk to find cool nature treasures, but they could not settle down to rolling balls of clay and actually making the imprints.

Eventually they were successful, and the fun story is that the snail that Lola found and used to make several impressions turned out to be alive.

"Look!" exclaimed Baymax, pointing to the shell.  Little Princess looked and saw the snail, now emerged from its shell, crawling awkwardly on the carpet.

They set him free outside.

For this class, Little Princess took the kids on a walk around the yard to find interesting natural items to press into clay.

Once done with that, they headed to our basement kitchen to make their impressions and bake them in the oven.

We had our usual lunchtime/reading/quiet time routine, and then the kids set up a water balloon fight for themselves.

But Brother chose to help Dad with the septic project.

In the evening, Grandma and Grandpa came over for a hamburger cook out and our awards ceremony.

We encouraged the kids to sign one another's camp shirts, but they were unwilling to sign anyone's but mine, Nature Angel's, and Little Princess'.

That's okay, because the next morning, I ironed all of their patches onto their t-shirts.

And camp was done.

As I said above, I'm so glad we did it; I'm so glad it's over!

We had a regular going-to-bed routine for most of the kids, but when the young ones were settled, the teens/tweens used the tent for one last party.  They got snacks, a movie, and fairy lights all set up for a grand sleepover together.

And they scuttled indoors when an enormous and unexpected thunderstorm struck in the wee hours!!

A week to remember!